Seasons in Ohio

So we had some funny winter pictures I never added. In February, we had a day when everyone got snowed in.

So we got together with our great friend and next door neighbor, Aimee, to go tromping out in the snow.

I wore Cam's gigantic boots,

Cam got his game face on,

and Aimee doesn't take crap from anyone.

We played, we saw, we conquered.

It was a good day. :)

Photos

So, my blog is definitely a learning experience. Today we're adding pictures. :)

Below is a dish from Rachel Ray's cookbook of which I was extremely proud. It's made with portabella mushroom caps and yummy chili doused all over an English muffin. Thank you to whoever gave us that cookbook for our wedding!

No Sound Bytes

Unfortunately, blogger doesn't accept MP3 files! I may be shopping around for a new blogging service, unless anyone has figured out how to upload MP3s onto this one. :)

Blogging and Singing

Blogging is so much better than Facebook! I agree with my friend, Allison Harwood. Thanks Alli! So today after I taught my voice students, I decided to stay at the studio (I was the only one there) and do some singing of my own. I recorded some clips for you all. I hope you enjoy. But beware--my MP3 player can't handle the high notes very well. So there are some brief moments of intense static. But I minimized those moments, so it will still be worth it to listen to the songs.

On the subject of singing, Cam has just found out that he was not awarded any of the grants he applied for. Which means we won't be going to Spain this summer. We feel all right about it. In fact, I am now excited to find a show to audition for and hopefully be in. I'm still developing my musical theater voice, and loving it (you'll see that on the recordings). My singing has improved SO much since I took lessons from Gayle Lockwood my last year at BYU. Musical theater training will do wonders for a voice that is incorrigibly dark and stuffy sounding--like the annoying opera voice we all hate.

Love, Care Bear

p.s. I'll add the sound clips later when I figure out how!
update: it looks like blogger doesn't support MP3 files. let's see what I can finagle.

My job

I like my job. At the risk of being ridiculed for complacency, I will tell you exactly what it entails.

I am a paramedical examiner for a company called APPS and I do insurance physicals. What that means is, when someone applies for life or disability insurance, the insurance company calls APPS and asks them to do a medical checkup on the person. APPS sorts out all the requests and assigns them to examiners based on geographic location. So I get messages via website and email when new cases are ready for me.

I call up the client and schedule an exam time. During the appointment, I get to draw the client's blood (hooray! One of my favorite parts), weigh, measure, take BP, and possibly perform an EKG on them. I also have to ask them a bunch of health history and write down the answers. Medical abbreviations come in very handy here, let me tell ya. Also, this part can be very tedious if the client can't stick to the question, but tells you their whole life history along with the answer you were looking for. :)

Each client takes between 15 and 60 minutes, just depending on what's required. Plus driving time to their house and back, of course. But that's also a fun part, because I've gotten to know Columbus quite well through this job. All of you know what a crappy sense of direction I have. But nothing will teach you the lay of the land like driving all over it.

After the appointments, I come home and finish up the paperwork, then scan it into my computer and email the images to APPS. I send the blood and urine samples off to the laboratory. This part is rather boring, but I can do it at my leisure (within reason of course) and at home, and I like that. It means only a couple hours a day in the public eye, which tends to stress me out. Sometimes I like to be a hermit. And I certainly like being able to stop working and take breaks whenever I want to. I'm spoiled.

Anyhoo, it's pretty good money. Lately I've been averaging only about 2 clients per day, but that still makes me around $1250 per month. Not bad, eh? Of course, some of you make that much or more in a week, but hey, it's ok for now!

First Entry

Hi Everyone!

I've been meaning to do this forever, and now enough of you have done it to convince me that it will be worth it. :) I'm a late adopter, as they say. I didn't have a cell phone until 2006, after I had graduated from college.

So, it is finally spring here in Columbus, Ohio, and we are loving it! We have to take advantage of this beautiful weather before it turns unbearably hot. Ohio is interesting. It was freezing a few weeks ago, and even now, some days it's absolutely sweltering. Unfortunately, the climate here doesn't seem to be very good at maintaining a happy medium. I think maybe it's the humidity that just makes everything more painful.

Cam still is trying to convince me that we should live in California someday. Me and my visiting teaching group (some girl friends) were talking the other day, and we all agreed that California is the most beautiful state. So that certainly wouldn't be a problem. But since we won't be moving for at least three years, and that choice will be largely determined by job openings, we'll just "burn that bridge when we come to it," as Cameron says.